Factors that facilitate reporting of adverse drug reactions by pharmacists in Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are a pervasive global problem, and its management is integral to patient safety and healthcare quality. Pharmacists play a pivotal role in monitoring and reporting ADRs, which has a direct impact on patient care. The aim of this study was to identify potential factors that facilitate pharmacists in community and hospital settings to report ADRs.

Methods: A cross-sectional, online survey using a validated questionnaire was administered to pharmacists working in community and hospital pharmacies in Saudi Arabia.

Results: 1,717 community and 153 hospital pharmacists participated in this study. Only 10.2% and 26.8% of community and hospital pharmacists, respectively, admitted ever reporting an ADR. The most reported factors that may facilitate ADRs reporting have included ongoing improvements in therapeutic knowledge about ADRs, attending educational programs with continuous medical education credits, the seriousness of the experienced ADRs and accessibility to patients’ medical profile. The impact of peers by seeing colleagues reporting ADRs and ADRs due to herbal or traditional medicine were the least important factors reported by pharmacists.

Conclusion: The study identified factors that can effectively address the under-reporting of ADRs by pharmacists. A multi-stakeholder, multi-pronged approach of ADR reporting is needed to develop greater awareness of this issue among pharmacists.

KEYWORDS:

• Adverse drug reaction
• under-reporting
• attitude
• healthcare professionals
• pharmacovigilance
• encouraging factors
• surveys

Authors’ contributions

AY Aldryhim, A Alomair and M Alqhtani have participated in data collection. AY Aldryhim, LG Pont, KM Kamal, AB Mekonnen, H Aljadhey, M Adam, B Balkhi, TM Alshammari, T Alhawassi and M Alwhaibi have all participated in designing the study, survey development, drafting the manuscript, analysis, interpretation of the findings, revising the manuscript content and gave final approval of the final version of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The paper was funded by the Vice Deanship of Research Chairs, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.